His Majesty King Abdullah II received on Sunday, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, John Boehner, and his accompanying delegation to discuss Middle East issues. The meeting, which was attended by Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah and His Royal Highness Prince Faisal Bin Al Hussein, dealt with Jordanian-US ties and ways to enhance these, especially in political and economic fields, in addition to regional and international developments, top of which are efforts to combat terrorism and extremist ideology and achieve peace in the region. The King said efforts should be ramped up to fend off the threat of...

PM warns of ‘Iran-Lausanne-Yemen axis'; officials say Tehran has agreed to ship out all enriched uranium to Russia Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Sunday against the emerging nuclear deal with Iran, as Iranian and Western officials in Lausanne, Switzerland were rushing to reach a framework agreement by an end-of-month deadline. “After the Beirut-Damascus-Baghdad axis, Iran is maneuvering from the south to take over the entire Middle East,” Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting, one of the last for his outgoing government. “The Iran-Lausanne-Yemen axis is dangerous for mankind and must be stopped.” Netanyahu told ministers that he had spoken with...

Mitch McConnell reacted to Harry Reid's impending retirement. The Senate majority leader had kind words for his Democratic counterpart, who announced Friday he would be retiring in 2016. "Nothing has ever come easily to this son of Searchlight. Underestimated often, his distinctive grit and determined focus nevertheless saw him through many challenges," McConnell said in a statement. "They continue to make him a formidable opponent today."

Somewhere former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker are having a good laugh. “The onetime friendship between Sens. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul has grown frosty as they both vie to become the leading conservative in the 2016 GOP presidential primary,” the Hill reports. “The Kentucky senator stepped on his Texas colleague’s campaign rollout this week by questioning his electability, a move that Cruz’s allies saw as a deliberate attempt to distract from his message.” Well, duh. This is a contest after all. Did Cruz expect his opponents to lay off? Paul says Cruz has no appeal...

Senate Republicans are proposing a budget amendment that would let states opt out of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) controversial climate rule for power plants.Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) proposed the amendment Tuesday on behalf of Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who is up for reelection in 2016. ADVERTISEMENT Under the amendment, a state’s governor or legislature would be able to opt out of the rule’s requirements for a variety of reasons.In order to be exempt from the rule, a governor or legislature would have to cite one of the following reasons: that the rule would hurt low-income or fixed-income...

WASHINGTON — Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has begun an aggressive campaign to block President Obama’s climate change agenda in statehouses and courtrooms across the country, arenas far beyond Mr. McConnell’s official reach and authority. The campaign of Mr. McConnell, the Senate majority leader, is aimed at stopping a set of Environmental Protection Agency regulations requiring states to reduce carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants, the nation’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Once enacted, the rules could shutter hundreds of coal-fired plants in what Mr. Obama has promoted as a transformation of the nation’s energy economy away from fossil...

Warlords don’t have use for peace because peace doesn’t have use for warlords. Only hours after the results revealing the Likud Party’s lead in obtaining the most seats – 30 to its closest competitors’ 24 of the Zionist Union (formerly the Labor Party)– in the next Israeli Knesset (Parliament), the National Republican Senatorial Committee in the U.S. sent an email message to millions of U.S. residents congratulating Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for what most likely will result in his re-election for a fourth term. The announcement includes a congratulatory petition for people to sign, and states in part: “The...

The failure of congressional Republicans to take action to stop President Obama’s arguably unconstitutional and illegitimate executive actions, on immigration in particular, has created a growing unrest among those who put John Boehner in charge of the House and Mitch McConnell the Senate. While there have been failed revolts in the House against Boehner’s leadership, by and large the anger has been kept out of the official GOP organizational structure. Until now. In what may be the first such action since the so-called “Cromnibus” and DHS funding passed, on Thursday night, March 12, 2015,the Tompkins County (NY) Republican Party Executive...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell doesn’t have to bring U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch, President Barack Obama’s nominee to serve as the next Attorney General of the United States, up on the Senate floor for a vote next week—or ever—if he doesn’t want her confirmed. But he’s doing it anyway, even though just four Senate Republicans have said they’ll vote for her—and even their support for her is questionable at this point. McConnell’s office has struggled to defend the Majority Leader’s decision—which flies in the face of a pre-election promise to not allow any attorney general nominee who supports Obama’s executive...

The U.S. will hit its debt limit on March 16 but with some "extraordinary measures" it will be able to fund the government on a temporary basis, according to U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, who urged Congress in a letter to raise the debt limit immediately. In the letter to House Speaker John Boehner and other House and Senate leaders, Lew said on March 13 his office would have to suspend the issuance of some local and and state securities, reports CNBC. "Accordingly, I respectfully ask Congress to raise the debt limit as soon as possible," Lew wrote in his...

Kentucky is one place in America where a tea-party firebrand and a Republican from the governance wing amicably meet.For two Republican senators from the same state, Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell could not be more mismatched. Senator Paul is a man in a hurry, with presidential stars in his eyes after a mere four years of serving Kentucky in Washington. The loquacious libertarian is a darling of young conservatives – a relaxed jeans-and-boots kind of guy. Senator McConnell, after three patient decades in office, has finally reached his dream job of Senate majority leader. A man of few words, he’s...

Well Mr. Speaker the charade is over. Obama has received just what he wanted and you and Mitch helped him. You can both now get back in line, knee pads in hand, ready to kiss the bony rear of your leader and ask, "What do you want next, Sire?" A real man once called some of our foes the, "Axis of Evil." Well I see another axis right here in what is left of America. Between you and McConnell and Obama you are destroying the America you grew up in and it apparently isn't going to stop. A more ineffective...

Jeb Bush reminded a CPAC audience what a conservative isn't; Ted Cruz of Texas reminded them what a conservative is. Friday, Governor Jeb Bush began to speak before the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Md., when a sudden shuffling of feet signaled the exodus of conservative Tea Party activists from the Patomac Ballroom of the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center. Bush now knows what New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio feels when an army of police officers turn their backs to him at every speech. William Temple, a Tea Party organizer from Brunswick, Georgia, led...

Congress closed in Friday on approving a short-term spending bill for the Homeland Security Department that would avert a partial agency shutdown hours before it was to begin. The legislation also leaves intact Obama administration executive actions on immigration that Republicans have vowed to overturn. But Republicans insisted that passing a short-term bill preserved their ability to keep fighting them. But Senate Republicans had already admitted defeat. As debate proceeded in the House, the Senate voted 68-31 to approve a full-year bill free of contentious immigration provisions. Some House Republicans predicted that they would eventually end up doing the same...

First Barack Obama decided to overreach and extend amnesty by executive order. One judge in Texas has told him no and Republicans are hanging their hat on that judge’s order. Then the FCC decided to declare internet a public utility. They overreached, rushed it through, and committed to as little transparency as possible to make it happen. Congress did nothing on this front and the FCC decided to replace the Congress on the matter. Now there are reports that Barack Obama, by executive order and agency regulation, will curtail the manufacture of certain ammunition. Again and again and again the...

I’ve been perplexed for six years as to why Hillary-the-Inevitable has already been deemed our next president. Likewise, I didn’t understand the Dems insistence on continually pumping up the deflated War on Women balloon and attempting to send it aloft again…and again when it clearly hasn’t been ready for prime time since the ‘80’s.Mylar; perfect.Then, as I was reading Daniel Henninger’s column, Captain America Won’t Save Us, it hit me: it was all part of “the deal” as I’ll explain in a bit. You have to feel sorry for the Democrats. In a world warming to presidential politics, what do...

Senate leaders from both parties will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his visit to Washington, D.C., next week. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will meet with Netanyahu on Tuesday afternoon, after his address to a joint session of Congress on the Iranian nuclear threat. On Wednesday, Netanyahu declined an invitation to meet only with Senate Democrats, fearing it would “compound the misperception of partisanship” surrounding his visit. The bipartisan invite comes amid rising tension between the Obama administration and Netanyahu. National security adviser Susan Rice on Wednesday called Netanyahu’s visit...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell faced a backlash Wednesday from conservatives after backing off demands that Congress reverse President Obama’s immigration executive actions as a condition for funding the Department of Homeland Security. Senate Democrats, meanwhile, voiced support for the new plan after initially staying coy. A day earlier, McConnell, R-Ky., effectively gave them what they’ve been demanding – by agreeing to hold a stand-alone vote on a DHS funding bill, with no immigration measures attached. “We are going to do everything we can to make sure it passes by an overwhelming vote. I think virtually every Democrat will vote...

Sad and disappointing but not a surprise. Sen. Mitch McConnell has showed himself to be the gutless wimp that we’ve all known he is. He has given the Democrats exactly what they have been demanding. In other words, Sen. Mitch McConnell, as majority leader, has shown the same feckless, flaccidity that he showed while minority leader. What he’s done is pass the buck back to the House: This is a shame. The issue is not only important but it is an easy win. It is the Democrats and the White House that need DHS funded. The GOP doesn’t. Something like...

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) haven’t spoken to each other in two weeks despite the shutdown fight gripping the Capitol, House Republicans said Wednesday.During a closed-door House GOP conference meeting Wednesday morning, Boehner told Republicans that he hadn’t spoken to McConnell recently despite the looming Feb. 28 deadline to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).“He said he hadn’t spoken to Mitch McConnell in a few weeks. We gave them a good bill. It funds the stuff we’re supposed to do, secure the borders,” Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) said after a morning conference meeting.Another...

The Conservative Political Action Conference is the biggest annual gathering of Republican leaders and conservative activists, but neither Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell nor House Speaker John A. Boehner is scheduled to make the 10-mile drive from Capitol Hill to speak to CPAC this year, underscoring the lingering tensions between Republican Washington leadership and the party’s grass roots. It marks the first time in years that Mr. McConnell will skip the CPAC gathering, a year after the Kentucky Republican made headlines by holding aloft a gun during his speech. Mr. Boehner last spoke at CPAC in 2010, months before the...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) unveiled legislation targeting President Obama’s most recent executive orders on immigration that does not withhold funding for the programs, after Senate Democrats once again filibustered a motion to debate the House-passed Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill. “Some Democrats give the impression they want Congress to address the overreach,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “But when they vote, they always seem to have an excuse for supporting actions they once criticized. So I’m going to begin proceedings on targeted legislation that would only address the most recent overreach from November. It isn’t...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is calling on rank-and-file Senate Democrats to break free from the clutches of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, vote their conscience and stop filibustering a House-passed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill. “This ruling underscores what the President has already acknowledged publicly 22 times: He doesn’t have the authority to take the kinds of actions he once referred to as ‘ignoring the law’ and ‘unwise and unfair.’ Senate Democrats–especially those who’ve voiced opposition to the President’s executive overreach—should end their partisan filibuster of Department of Homeland Security funding,” McConnell says. Senate Republican conference chairman...

Mitch McConnell now faces the same problem with his party’s right flank as John Boehner does in the House. Mitch McConnell gave conservatives their shot Tuesday—a vote on a tough bill that would roll back President Obama's immigration policies. Now he has a choice to make. A House-passed Department of Homeland Security funding bill failed to overcome a procedural vote, getting only 51 of the 60 votes needed to stay alive in the Senate. The measure would block Obama's executive action on immigration and place "Dreamers" and millions of other immigrants back at risk of deportation. The vote sets up...

A bill funding the Department of Homeland Security failed in the Senate Tuesday because it would block the president's executive action on deportations. The question now is, what will Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell try next? The department runs out of money on February 27. Texas senator and potential presidential candidate Ted Cruz insists DHS not get any money unless Republicans get to undo the president's immigration policies. That places McConnell in a dilemma. Republican Cruz has vowed he will stop at nothing to block the president's executive action on immigration. And when you ask the Texas senator exactly how...

A top Republican joked in an interview broadcast late Sunday that President Obama may become the first president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to seek a third term in office. Following the Obama’s State of the Union address last Tuesday, “my first thought was it sounded like he was running for a third term,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) tells CBS’s “60 Minutes.” Obama acknowledged this during his State of the Union address: “I have no more campaigns to run. I know because I won both of them.” Nevertheless, Republicans remain uneasy about a president that they believe has overstepped...

GOP elites want Americans to think the party's boring and safe again. Maybe someone should notify the Tea Party. If you’re understandably perplexed by the Republican Party’s apparent decision to enter the post-Obama era by nominating either another member of the Bush dynasty, or another version of Mitt Romney, there’s at least one way to think about it that might help explain the seemingly inexplicable. Put simply, the leaders of the GOP, the people who tend to be referred to as “the establishment,” fervently believe that in order to win in 2016, Republicans will have to convince voters that the...

House conservatives are taking aim at a new target: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Tea Party lawmakers on Wednesday directed their ire at the Kentucky Republican after Senate leaders signaled they don’t have the votes to pass a House-approved bill that would fight President Obama’s executive actions on immigration. It’s a new tack for the Tea Party members in the House, who have repeatedly criticized Obama, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). House lawmakers say their conservative allies in the Senate have a responsibility to force the upper chamber to aggressively challenge Obama’s actions. But...

For now, senators say itÂ’s not a problem that one of the most powerful Republicans in D.C. already has a likely presidential candidate. Â“I work with Sen. McConnell on stuff, I make sure he knows what IÂ’m doing to try and get it across the finish line,Â” Paul said. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made no secret that heÂ’ll support his fellow Kentuckian, Sen. Rand Paul, should Paul run for president in 2016. And Paul has also made no secret that he very, very likely will do just that. But thereÂ’s a lot of time between now and the...

HERSHEY, PA. — Senate GOP leaders are using their joint retreat with the House to warn conservatives that they’re not going to be able to reverse President Obama’s executive orders on immigration. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told House lawmakers that he needs at least six Democrats to pass legislation approved by the House that funds the Homeland Security Department and repeals Obama’s actions deferring deportation for millions of illegal immigrants. He told House Republicans not to expect miracles, since it would take 60 Senate votes to send the House bill to Obama’s desk, and McConnell only has 54...

Mitch McConnell has pledged that "regular order" will be restored to the Senate under his leadership, but his biggest obstacle to achieving that goal may not be Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, but fellow Republicans, particularly Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. With a potential run for the Republican nomination in 2016 in mind, Cruz has "a vested interest in pulling his colleagues to the right in a highly public manner, one that probably won’t be consistent with making deals with the White House," reports The Wall Street Journal. Despite receiving criticism for his filibuster of a vote on Obamacare, which many...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) are competing for influence among the Senate’s 12 Republican freshmen, with the outcome potentially shaping the agenda for 2015 and beyond. Cruz has reached out to freshman Republicans, whom he helped in last year’s elections, in hopes they will join his effort to pressure Republican leaders to pursue what he calls a “bold agenda.” “We should follow through on our commitment to provide big, bold positive ideas responding to the very real economic hardship that so many millions of Americans are feeling,” he said. Cruz said he has targeted...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — A battle is shaping up between Sens. Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell. McConnell, the Senate majority leader, and Cruz, the conservative firebrand, are competing for influence among the Senate’s 12 Republican freshmen. The outcome, writes the Hill, will potentially shape the agenda for 2015 and beyond. Cruz has reached out to freshman Republicans in hopes they will join his effort to pressure GOP leaders to pursue what he calls a “bold agenda.” McConnell, meanwhile, has consistently told colleagues the only way they can have an impact is by getting legislation to President Barack Obama’s desk. That means...

“Mitch McConnell has an unusual admonition for the new Republican majority as it takes over the Senate this week: Don’t be ‘scary.’”... Democrats are dubious of McConnell’s pledge to avert edge-of-the-cliff moments. They believe he will run into the same problems that have bedeviled House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) during the past four years — including the inability to corral rabble-rousers such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) to support an agenda that conservative critics will probably view as not bold enough in challenging Obama. Appeasing those far-right conservatives will lead to an agenda that Democrats hope to exploit in...

Mitch McConnell has an unusual admonition for the new Republican majority as it takes over the Senate this week: Don’t be “scary.” The incoming Senate majority leader has set a political goal for the next two years of overseeing a functioning, reasonable majority on Capitol Hill that scores some measured conservative wins, particularly against environmental regulations, but probably not big victories such as a full repeal of the health-care law. McConnell’s priority is to set the stage for a potential GOP presidential victory in 2016. “I don’t want the American people to think that if they add a Republican president...

A second round of poll results from a survey of Republican voters taken Christmas week was released on Sunday. The poll shows that a revolution is at hand with a stunning majority of 2014 GOP voters who gave their party control of both houses of Congress ready to throw out the Republican leaders of both houses in favor of new leadership. Only sixteen percent of voters surveyed want both John Boehner and Mitch McConnell to serve as leaders of the House and Senate respectively when the 114th Congress convenes this week. Boehner’s support on his own for Speaker of the...

A trouncing! A tsunami! A shellacking! That's the conventional wisdom about last month's midterm elections. But it's wrong. Yes, the GOP picked up 12 seats in the House and gained at least seven seats in the Senate, but calling that a shellacking requires closing your eyes to some really big numbers. First, the average pickup for the opposition party in midterm elections that take place in the sixth year of a presidency is 29 seats in the House and six seats in the Senate. Second, 60 percent of voters told exit polls they were either "dissatisfied" with Republican leaders in...

To incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), it is more important for Republicans to be the party of yes than go all-out to defund President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty.According to the New York Times, McConnell “acknowledges that changing the mind-set of opposition” in the next Congress “will be crucial to advancing legislation that will attract Democratic support and force” Obama “into difficult choices over whether to sign measures pushed by his adversaries.” The Times notes “that is why his focus will be lawmakers he thinks he can meld into a governing coalition.”“All of us from time to time make a point,” Mr. McConnell told the...

HISTORIANS rate presidents by every conceivable quality. What about least lame duck? President Obama is making a run for the title. Since the midterm elections, in his first month and a half as a lame duck, Mr. Obama has taken dramatic action on immigration, climate change and now, normalizing relations with Cuba. In our new political marketplace, the decline of powerful party organizations and the rise of hyperpartisan politics mean that presidents have much less political capital even at the height of their terms. At the same time, they have unprecedented capacity for unilateral executive authority. The great constraints on...

Politics is predictably unpredictable. So it’s no surprise that President Obama, after a hellacious 11 months, is finishing his sixth year on an unpredictably strong note. The U.S. economy is sitting up and taking nourishment, recovering nicely. Vladimir Putin, whom Republicans like Rudy Giuliani were fawning over as a “real leader” in contrast to our pusillanimous president, is gasping for air as the Russian economy sinks under the weight of Obama-led sanctions and a U.S. energy surge. Having stuck a thumb in the eye of the GOP with his immigration initiative, Obama used another digit on the Grand Old Partisans...

Beginning on Thursday night, a fight erupted on line between Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Rand Paul over the new diplomatic opening to Cuba. Rubio slammed Paul for his ignorance, while Paul bizarrely accused Rubio of “isolationism” for opposing Barack Obama’s policies. Before that battle began in earnest, I spoke with incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in a wide-ranging interview about his plans for the 114th Session of Congress. We discussed Cuba, and McConnell made it clear that he was relying on Rubio’s leadership on the issue — which might make for an awkward moment or two between McConnell...

Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions is out as chair of the Senate Budget Committee. **"Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) is giving up his bid to become the next Budget Committee chairman — deferring to Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and eliminating the only competitive chairmanship battle in the incoming GOP Senate majority. "Sessions has been the panel’s top Republican for the past four years but Enzi technically retains seniority over the Alabaman on the committee and said several weeks ago that he would challenge Sessions for the chairmanship."** This is going to portrayed as a simple matter of seniority. It isn’t. That story...

Now that the GOP is taking control of the Senate in 2015, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., offered up a resolution of sorts for the opposing party to abide by next year: Get Ted Cruz under control. Durbin’s suggestion comes days after Cruz’s disastrous maneuver last week that brought the Senate into session on Saturday, unwittingly opening the door to the approval of dozens of President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees. That infuriated Republicans, leading Cruz to apologize days later. “It was classic Cruz. He knew how to get the headline, but he didn’t know how to close the deal,” Durbin...

The new Republican-controlled Senate's first act in January will be approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday. McConnell told reporters that the bill would be based on a measure that failed in the Senate last month that was co-sponsored by North Dakota Republican John Hoeven and Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu. "It'll be open for amendment," McConnell said. "I will hope that senators on both sides will offer energy-related amendments but there'll be no effort to try to micromanage the amendment process." Landrieu pushed for a Keystone vote in November in a last-ditch effort to...

The last-minute vote to approve a long-term spending package cast a bright light on unusual splits in an otherwise unified Democratic congressional caucus. Following the lead of Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), House and Senate Democrats voted against a bill that President Obama was personally advocating. It was similar to the insurgency faced by the Republican establishment last year, as many, many pundits pointed out, only with "no bank bailouts" replacing "no Obamacare" as a rallying cry. At ABC, Rick Klein, presumably with his tongue in his cheek, suggested that there are now "four parties that need to be...

It’s a question that will prove crucial next year when Mitch McConnell takes the reins of a new Senate: Just how big is the Ted Cruz caucus? Three votes on the “cromnibus” late Saturday night suggest it could be as large as 22 senators — a dangerously high number for McConnell — or as few as a handful. Let’s break down the three votes — on filibustering the $1.1 trillion package, on Cruz’s point of order aimed at targeting the president’s immigration action, and final passage. The high-water mark for the Texas Republican came on his point of order vote,...